The eradication of the Jewish community of Pakistan sets a dangerous precedent for the future of other faith communities, a British report into religious freedom in Pakistan has concluded. However, it does not have enough information to say if what is left of the 'community' is still at 'real' risk.

The (Westminster) All Parliamentary Group for International Freedom of Religion and Belief (APPG), chaired by Lord David Alton, heard evidence from 20 different organisations over three months - among them, Harif, the UK Association of Jews from the Middle East and North Africa, about the plight of the Jewish community. There are thought to be ten families of Jewish origin masquerading as Parsis or Muslims in Pakistan.

"Fishel Benkhald is Pakistan's only self
-
declared Jew. He wants to restore the cemetery and
rebuild the synagogue in Karachi. He stated that:
"My dream is to gain empathy. Later I
will try and get help and start the process for a small synagogue
"
.

"In 2009, the constant anti
-
Semitic propaganda and conspiracy theories from the Pakistani
government and media sickened him, he wrote that: "My political side outgrew my fear. I
felt less hesitant to claim my religion more publi
cally than I would have before”.

"In February 2014 Fishel, whose father is Muslim but whose mother is Jewish (and
therefore considered Jewish under Jewish law)
planned to change his official religious
status from Islam to Judaism. He said "It is dangerous, but I will go at least once to record
my request so their response can be documented."

"The APPG heard that NADRA, the
database in Pakistan which handles citizenship,
denied his request to change his identity
from 'Muslim' to 'Jew'.

"This is a concerning outcome as it represents a flagrant violation
of one
’
s freedom to pursue and manifest one's religious belief. It is also a worrying
development for the trend of plurality and religious freedom in Pakistan.

"We have heard testament of the destruction of the Jewish community in Pakistan, and
with the continuing trends of high levels of persecution and discrimination against other religious
minorities discussed in this report, it is perhaps a worrying sign that there may be a risk of the
eradication of other minorities too.

"Conclusions:
The
APPG is concerned at the
apparent virtual
eradication of the Pakistani Jewish Community and
fears other minority groups may suffer a similar fate if the trajectory of religious freedom in Pakistan
does not proceed in a positive direction. Due to the very small size of the Jewish community in
Pakistan, the APPG cannot conclude whether members of this community are
currently
at real risk of
persecution, however we do recognise that this is a result of past persecutory action against the
Jewish community.

"The APPG recommends that further evidence be gathered on any
remaining Jews in Pakistan and that all Jewish asylum cases being claimed on the grounds of
religious persecution be analysed on a case
-
by
-
case basis with the cumulative grounds for
establishing persecution, as outlined above, being taken into account."

The report generally challenges the complacency of the UK government which did not always deem persecuted minorities to be at 'real' risk. A number of Pakistani Christians have been forced to seek asylum in Thailand where they have been interned under terrible conditions. It was his visit to a detention camp in Bangkok that prompted Lord Alton to investigate why the British government was delaying granting asylum to refugees from Pakistan.

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Introduction

In just 50 years, almost a million Jews, whose communities stretch back up to 3,000 years, have been 'ethnically cleansed' from 10 Arab countries. These refugees outnumber the Palestinian refugees two to one, but their narrative has all but been ignored. Unlike Palestinian refugees, they fled not war, but systematic persecution. Seen in this light, Israel, where some 50 percent of the Jewish population descend from these refugees and are now full citizens, is the legitimate expression of the self-determination of an oppressed indigenous, Middle Eastern people.This website is dedicated to preserving the memory of the near-extinct Jewish communities, which can never return to what and where they once were - even if they wanted to. It will attempt to pass on the stories of the Jewish refugees and their current struggle for recognition and restitution. Awareness of the injustice done to these Jews can only advance the cause of peace and reconciliation.(Iran: once an ally of Israel, the Islamic Republic of Iran is now an implacable enemy and numbers of Iranian Jews have fallen drastically from 80,000 to 20,000 since the 1979 Islamic revolution. Their plight - and that of all other communities threatened by Islamism - does therefore fall within the scope of this blog.)